


Above the Storm

by midnightflame



Series: Homecoming [14]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Mention of injuries, Shower Sex, This is what it means to come home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 02:58:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9414926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: Shiro has always loved the way Keith breaks him down.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Here we are - the last piece of this series! I've included a few thoughts at the end, and hopefully that will explain some things about this whole endeavor. But for the meantime, I hope you all enjoy!

Shiro had called them briefings, but if he wanted to be honest, they had been more akin to interrogations and he couldn’t blame any in their alliance for their questions, their concerns, nor the anxiety and fear that plagued each look given. Trust is the one of strongest weapons they possess, and yet it is far more fragile a thing than any of them would like to believe. It takes only the whisper of a doubt, however small, to set an uphill battle in motion.

Sometimes you all came out intact. Other times though. . .

For the moment, relief seems to be pervading the ship’s atmosphere, and whatever fears had been harbored mostly allayed. Shiro had declined Allura’s suggestion for one of the cryo-pods, stating there was nothing so grievous about his injuries that needed one, and she had let him walk away with a small smile on her lips, worried but silent. 

*

“Keith!” The name slips from his mouth with genuine surprise as Shiro steps into his room. 

And Keith is there, a towel wrapped around his waist, water dripping from his dampened hair and bruises like broken constellations littering his skin. 

“Shiro. . .”

There is something warm and wanting in the way Keith says his name, relieved in all the ways that make Shiro finally feel like he is home. He finds himself smiling, a touch amused.

“Please tell me you showered in here and didn’t walk the hallways looking like a wet cat when we have half the alliance’s leadership on board. . .”

Keith’s mouth scrunches up, the only bit of a pout Shiro will get, before he responds with chin tipped up and a look far too affection in his eyes. “I’m not Lance, you know. Of course, I showered in here. . .”

“I thought they told you to rest.”

“And I thought they were going to throw you in a cryo-pod until they knew what to do with you!”

Shiro tips his head to the side, unable to stop the smirk curling the corner of his mouth. “So, in my absence, you thought to take over my room?”

The red flares bright along Keith’s cheeks. He diverts his gaze to the desk, where he had set his clothes and knife in one neat pile. 

“No. . .it wasn’t like that. . .”

Shiro’s heart quickens, his fingers curling against his thighs. He remembers standing there, on the precipice of all he wanted, of how desperate Keith had been to call him home. 

Of how stunning Keith is when he burns for everything he loves. 

“Then what was it like?” Shiro asks, quiet and needing.

Keith glances up at him then, his eyes widened, lips parted. Shiro knows there are things Keith wants to say, probably should say, but instead, he’s swallowing the distance between them, putting arms around his shoulders and pressing their lips together. Immediately, Shiro’s hands settle on Keith’s waist, skirting the line of his towel. There has never been anything as satisfying as that one kiss, a quiet force of nature all of its own.

And never has anything put the hunger into him quite like it either.

Shiro parts his lips at the request of Keith’s tongue, moans softly into his mouth because there is nothing he has done to deserve this but it is being given to him still. He cannot deny it. Never has been able to. When Keith asks, Shiro gives – it has been as simple as that. 

A hand comes up to his cheek, brushing over the yellow-green of the bruise there. Shiro shudders at the touch.

“First the Galra. . .and then I thought our own people would take you away,” Keith whispers, soft and broken, against Shiro’s lips. “How many times must I lose you?”

He has no answer for that. Instead, his arms slide across Keith’s back, pulling him into a tight embrace. Shiro buries his head against Keith’s neck, eyes closing, inhaling deeply. And Keith smells just a little like him, clean as rain with the faint scent of cedar (it’s the closest thing Shiro had ever found to defining the smell though Coran had looked at him like he was crazy for the suggestion). He sets a kiss against Keith’s throat, knowing even without seeing, that there is a bruise sitting just beneath.

“I’m right here.”

Keith pulls himself closer, forearms locking around the back of Shiro’s neck, a quiet hum of acknowledgment bubbling in his throat. His heartbeat settles, lured into compliance by the steady breaths coming from Keith, the warmth of his body. All of it telling him nothing more is needed.

He doesn’t know how long they stand like that, a minute maybe though Shiro would have taken forever, but eventually Keith slips his arms down, pressing palms to Shiro’s chest, their foreheads together. 

“You going to shower?”

Shiro laughs. “I guess I did just fight my way out of a Galra fleet and sweat out an hour’s worth of questions from every alliance leader we’ve gathered. . .”

“I’m pretty sure the vomit Lance got covered in after attacking that one creature was far worse.” Keith disentangles himself with a kiss to Shiro’s forehead. “I’ll go start the shower then. . .”

“Thanks.”

He doesn’t move right away, though. Rather, Shiro watches as Keith grabs a second towel from the bed then heads into the bathroom. There are scars now, where Shiro remembers once having found next to none, and there are wounds still healing that will leave more still. He finds it a quiet consolation that there will still be far more stars in the skies than scars lining Keith’s body, even if several of them will now have his name attached to them. 

People once took to naming stars after themselves, for just the right price. So, which of them truly paid for those? 

With a shake of his head, hoping to dislodge the thought, Shiro finally turns to the task of taking off his boots, followed by pants, then shirt, until he hears the water trickling against the tiles and he’s standing there only in his boxer briefs. Something he thinks nothing of until Keith is standing there in the bathroom doorway, his brow knitted tightly together, his lips pursed, expression almost pained. 

“What? Should I have chosen another color?” Shiro asks, hoping to alleviate whatever affliction has currently attached itself to Keith. “I thought black was pretty standard. . .”

And seemingly despite himself, a smile cracks the tight line of Keith’s lips. “No, the color is fine. It . . .suits you. It’s just. . .” Keith makes a half-hearted gesture in the air over Shiro’s figure. “. . .They really messed you up.”

Shiro blinks at that, head tipping to the side, and as he moves into the bathroom, in plain sight of the mirror, he finally understands what Keith had been getting at. He laughs, though it comes out as more of a bitter huff, devoid of any honest mirth.

“I’m pretty sure that’s the understatement of the century, Keith.”

Standing before him, everything is reflected with aching clarity. Three large scars, purple-pink in color, have slashed their way across his right side, the skin still bruised magnificently from his shoulder down to his hip, like someone had needed a map to all that he was and pounded it hit by hit for all to see. _Here is where pain sits and this is how to trace its route._ His lower lip isn’t swollen but there’s the unmistakable dark line of a healing cut slicing down the outer edge, and his cheek has that sickly green hue that always comes when something wicked tries to heal itself. Shiro remembers that hit, and it hadn’t been kind. 

There are more bruises and smaller cuts dotting his body, testament to all he had withstood, even if barely. 

A right mess of a man. 

Shiro lifts his right hand, runs fingers through his hair. “They definitely did a. . .” 

But he doesn’t finish that statement, silenced, as Keith wraps his arms around him, as he sets his lips to his shoulder and stares at him through the mirror with a gaze burning bright as a phoenix’s ascent. Shiro tips his head towards Keith’s, a hand coming to rest over those pressed against his stomach. 

“Keith. . .everything that I –“

“Not all of it was you.”

“No, I have to –“

“You don’t have to carry that, Shiro!” Keith states, hard and fast and unrelenting. “Not alone.”

Fingers twitch against Keith’s forearm. His gaze drops. With a slow, controlled exhale, Shiro turns around in Keith’s arms, brings hands to cup the sides of his neck, gentle and repentant, and leans down to press their lips together. And he kisses slow, light at first, and when Keith whines softly, when his hands abandon his waist and slide up along his spine, Shiro parts his lips, deepens the affair with a flick of his tongue and all the acceptance he can muster for that one simple statement offered to him.

Wherever he goes, Keith finds him. No matter where he goes, Shiro has never stopped wanting him. 

Keith takes a step back, luring him bit by bit, back into the shower. The towel falls from his waist just outside the threshold, and seconds later his fingers are tugging at Shiro’s underpants. A matter Shiro doesn’t address immediately, instead, walking them both back under the spill of water, fleeting kisses taken with every step. It’s only when Keith’s back is against the wall and the water is running warm over their mouths that Shiro finally acquiesces and pulls the last article of clothing free of his body. 

Fingers in his hair, Shiro begins a slow descent along Keith’s body, stamping kisses light and apologetic down his neck, down the center of his chest and pausing just over the space where Keith’s heart would be. He holds his lips there, thumbs tracing circles over his ribs, and exhales softly in time to the beat locked beneath. When it suddenly quickens, Shiro smiles, runs his tongue over skin, and sinks lower once more. 

Kiss by kiss, beat by beat.

His mouth stills over the jut of Keith’s right hip. Above him, there’s a sharp intake of breath, a shiver of a sound, and fingers begin to smooth the hair back from his forehead. Shiro looks up, his lips parted and pressed lightly to skin, and catches Keith gazing down at him with a look heavy and hopeful. 

With the flick of his tongue, the promise of a smile, Shiro reaches over and curls his left hand around the base of Keith’s half-hardened cock. As he resumes his task, one kiss after another lighting up nerves and desire, he begins to pump his hand along the shaft. Encouraging further excitement with every touch, every breath, until Keith is fully erect and all that is left is for Shiro to plant one last kiss to his inner thigh.

Keith’s hands are still in his hair, tangled in the wet strands. Just a flash of eye contact is all Shiro gives as he wraps his lips around the head of Keith’s cock and drags a weighted moan from Keith’s mouth. The fingers in his hair tighten, then relax, smoothing the way once more for a perfect line of sight. Shiro knows Keith will see all of it, everything the angle will offer him as he takes him further into his mouth, letting his tongue run flat along the underside of his shaft. He pulls his head back, deliberate and precise, then plunges down again, his hand slicking the way down to the base. 

Above him, Keith’s shoulders curve inward, and he presses his palm flat atop Shiro’s head, fingers coiled tight within his hair. His mouth is open, soft, ragged pants puffing out, and just when Shiro thinks he’s cornered Keith, a single word puts the searing edge on his own desire and stops him just as he started to suck at the head of Keith’s cock. 

“ _Takashi_. . .”

This time, it’s Shiro who is moaning, deep and wanting. His right hand digs into Keith’s hip as he pulls himself away, nothing but the sound of water and Keith’s quiet panting filling his mind. The tug on his hair lessens, leaves him entirely, and seconds later, he realizes why when Keith has both hands against his jaw and is pulling him up into the sort of kiss Shiro would gladly drown in. 

Inch by inch, he rises up, pulled forward by Keith and all the promise held in his lips. His right hand finds the wall behind them; his left curves around Keith’s back. When Keith grinds up against him, all Shiro can do is hold himself firm, body trembling for every bit of restraint he’s called upon it for. His eyes screw shut, heart hammering, and when Keith kisses him again, Shiro is swearing against it all. 

He has always loved the way Keith breaks him down.

“I want you. . .”

Keith smiles against his mouth, their eyes meeting, gazes holding. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

Shiro bursts out with laughter, as warm as the water raining over them, as warm as every bit of Keith he has ever known. 

“You’re terrible.”

A press of lips, light and playful. “And you kept me waiting.”

Shiro can’t deny that, not at all. In fact, he can’t deny any of this, and as he tips his forehead against Keith’s, he’s smiling in the way he knows Keith loves best because Shiro can see the way the light burns bright as sun-dappled hope in his eyes and it makes him absolutely stunning. When he kisses Keith, it’s with that curve to his mouth and a lightness to his being. 

Because they are here, right now, and there is nothing Keith has denied him either. 

When Keith brings their hips together once more, insistent, and as his erection rubs hot and wet against Keith’s, Shiro is reminded, almost painfully, that he is not the only one wanting in all of this. 

He gives a light tap against Keith’s hip, a gentle nip to his jaw. “Turn around.”

Keith gives him a small nod and does as told, twisting around and placing his hands against the shower wall. Water runs a new course down the curve of Keith’s spine, and Shiro simply stands there, watching, before reaching out and tracing several of the rivulets down Keith’s back. Beneath his touch, Keith trembles. Shiro leans in, putting lips to shoulder over the silvered edges of an old scar, and strings a line of kisses across Keith's upper back. 

As he brushes the hair from the nape of Keith’s neck, his gaze catches on the soap dish sitting just above. 

“Were you thinking about me?” he murmurs against skin, letting his left hand drift along the curve of Keith’s ass. When he presses forward and brushes a finger over puckered skin, Keith moans quietly.

“Always. . .”

Shiro considers himself a fairly level-headed man. He’s seen far more than most his age could dream of, fought more battles and survived far worse, and the fact that it takes only a single word, dropping heated and binding, to deconstruct everything his control has fortified should have infuriated him. Instead, he can only fall.

Completely. Fearlessly. 

Reaching above, Shiro pulls the small bottle of lube down from its perch and spreads it over his fingers. When the first one slides inside, Keith gives a soft pleading whine. At the second, his back arches and Shiro can’t help but skate an index finger right down his spine, punctuated with a soft, playful slap against Keith’s ass. The third slips in easily enough, but given everything Shiro imagines Keith had done during his own shower (and he really shouldn’t have imagined because all it has done is put a grinding ache in his groin) he can’t claim any particular surprise. Even so, he works his fingers in and out, smooth and slow, until Keith is all but ordering Shiro for more. 

Which is something Shiro is more than happy to follow through on. He runs a hand down the length of his own cock, brow knitting as the lube glides along the shaft, reminding him of how neglected it had been in all of this. It’s an exquisite sort of pain, gratifying and stifling all in the same breath, and it’s only intensified as he presses the head of his cock just barely inside, as Keith tightens around him. 

Shiro has to bring both hands to Keith’s hips, steadying himself in the face of a pleasure that would rather drop him to his knees. Keith wiggles himself at the lack of action; Shiro’s fingers dig in against skin. And slowly, he eases his full length inside, a harsh grunt breaking over his tongue as he settles in down to the base. There, he waits, only for a moment, then just as slowly moves his hips back until all but the head of his cock is buried once again. 

Beneath his hands, Keith shudders as he moans. 

He continues like that for several moments, tight and controlled, letting the heat build up in his core until it's all but driven to a maddened blaze by the way his name drops from Keith’s lips, desperate and needy. Then, he’s moving, fast then faster, with thrusts just as precise as before. He watches as Keith drops a hand from the wall and reaches down between his legs, and the image that flashes in his mind, of how Keith will stroke himself in time to his hip's movements, nearly pushes Shiro over the edge. 

So, he slows, only for a breath or two, just enough to bring his vision back in focus over the sights before him - of Keith with his back beautifully curved, glancing over his shoulder, the look in his eyes hazy, as his cock drives deep into him. Shiro feels a pull at his core, and before it can take him, he leans forward and puts his lips to skin once more. 

“Don’t stop,” Keith breathes out, his eyes still locked on Shiro. 

When he starts again, there is nothing of control left, only an acute desire for oblivion. His hips jolt forward, pounding again and again until all he has left is Keith’s name on his tongue and a tremor shaking all that he is. When he comes, everything goes black and warm around him, completely empty save for the echo of a heartbeat not his own. 

And as the world filters back in, the first thing Shiro sees is Keith, his head resting against his forearm, his lips parted with the bare curve of a smile just visible over the line of his shoulder.

*

“It terrified me,” Shiro murmurs, “when I realized that you had found me.”

He looks above him, where Keith’s brow has furrowed in that way it always does when he gets concerned and doesn’t quite know how to express it. So, he shifts instead, positioning himself over Shiro’s hips and tugging the sheets out from underneath his left knee. Like that would somehow put something right in the place where he needed it to be, a perfect explanation. 

It brings a smile to Shiro’s lips, full of understanding.

“What I mean is. . .what scared me the most was how relieved I was that you had. But I had brought you somewhere, and I didn’t know that I could get you out of it.”

“It doesn’t matter where you go, Shiro,” Keith replies, quiet and only after a minute of battling with himself over the matter. He reaches down and takes Shiro’s right hand. And as he continues to speak, he interlaces their fingers, one after the other. “As long as I have you, I have home.”

**Author's Note:**

> This whole series took frame in my mind after listening to Starset's album Transmissions (wonderful album and I hope some of you will look into it and their new one, which has already sparked a few more ideas for me), as it struck me as a very Sheith thing, which may just be me but inspiration comes in odd forms I suppose, in addition to the fact that I had been reading quite a bit of poetry during the past few months. It was from that angle that I decided I wanted to try applying more traditional poetic repetition elements to a story, broken up in varying pieces. So, if something seems repetitive, it was likely a more purposeful choice, and I hope it added something to the telling of this piece rather than detracted, but honestly, I'm not entirely sure how successful my attempt here has been. 
> 
> For all its shortcomings though, I do want to say I have enjoyed writing this immensely. I absolutely love these two, so it's been a blast, and I am really thankful for all of you who have followed me on this little experiment of mine! Having you all comment and give your kudos is something I am grateful for, especially on something like this. 
> 
> And for those who might like to read this in chronological order, below you'll find it listed from start to end, along with the corresponding Transmissions track. 
> 
> \- Like Eternal Northern Lights (Telescope)  
> \- The Force of a Dying Star (The Future Is Now)  
> \- The Fallen Again, In Seas of Shadows (Down with the Fallen)  
> \- Carnivore, Digest Me (Carnivore)  
> \- Send Out the Signal (Halo)  
> \- Cold Heart Beating (Let It Die)  
> \- The Endless Rise (Rise and Fall)  
> \- Watch It Burn (Point of No Return)  
> \- Ship Slowly Sinking (My Demons)  
> \- In a Rabbit's Hole (It Has Begun)  
> \- Above the Storm (Antigravity)
> 
> Now, for the last pieces - Light up the Night and Dark Star (Dark on Me) - in the theme of repetition, these pieces I feel can serve as either the opening of this entire series or as its final close, much in the same way a single line can be used to open and close a poem. So, place them where you feel they satisfy you best in this series, but I feel they can be taken at either point.
> 
> Now with that said, I'd like to thank you all for reading this once again!


End file.
